How to Write for Black Library

If there’s one question I get asked more than any other, it’s “how do you become a Black Library author.” That’s totally understandable, given that at the time of writing I’m one of Black Library’s newest recruits, and until I was chosen I’d been trying via the selection process for a full decade. Older and wiser scribes than I have already provided some top tips on bringing your writing up to a publishable standard, so I’ll keep this post focused the specifics of the submissions process itself.

To my knowledge, since the Cold Hand of Betrayal anthology back in 2006 there have been three ways to submit your unsolicited work (a.k.a. without requiring the services of a literary agent) to Black Library. The first method is via a fixed anthology format. Black Library comes up with a subject for a collection of short stories, for example, Planetkill, and new writers are encouraged to submit…